Justice and Climate Migration

In the contemporary discourse on climate change-related disaster, migration, and future pathways, it is critical that academics and decision makers do not jettison climate change, and the existential uniqueness of it, as a key and rapidly growing driver of population movement. The current discourse frequently trends toward a diminishment of climate change’s contemporary and future impact on population movements. This chapter stipulates first and foremost that almost everything is multi-causal—including climate-induced migration and displacement. Indeed, if one considers common law torts, most—at least the interesting jurisprudence shifting ones—are not simply comprised of one punching another in the nose. They are complex, and even a single accident will likely have multiple progenitors. It is certainly true that disaster displacement “occurs in the context of disasters.” ¹ In other words, some of the most adverse impacts of a storm, including displacement, are as (or more) causally related to a community’s lack of preparedness, for example, than the natural disaster that struck. Indeed, the pertinence of “context” has been extensively noted and discussed in environmental and climate justice literature on the phenomenon of the “second disaster.” ²